McGautha Simoné McGauthaDr. Jonas CopeEnglish 2100Close Reading 215 March 2013The Readers are the Real IdiotsAfter my first time reading “Idiot Boy” by William Wordsworth, my initial thoughts werethat the idiot at the heart of this poem is the actual character, the “Idiot Boy” of the title. I first assumed that the boy is the idiot because of the title of the poem. Once I actually read the poem all the way through I saw that the mother is actually quite crazy in her own way. In the poem it appears that she loses her mind as she yells into the distance over and over and then later runs into the woods and finds a place to weep while looking for her son. In the poem I could tell that William Wordsworth has opened up his feminine side in a way to write about the mother Betty Foy. In writing the poem he must have used a great amount of mother-love thinking. Wordsworthcreated Betty Foy as a character who openly shows her love towards her son. After taking notice of the genuineness of Betty Foy in the story, I asked myself, “Is Wordsworth really trying to make her out to be some terrible person as most readers’ first assumption? Or is he saying something else?” I do believe that Wordsworth is trying to show us another side to Betty Foy. Yes, Wordsworth wanted to invoke feelings of disgust initially, but then he wanted us to ask ourselves why we were so put off by these images. Historically, families put off people with disabilities, especially the upper class; because of this, it is easy for us to assume that Betty Foy would neglect her disabled son. But, instead of neglecting her disabled son, she ignores his disability; in which there is a difference. In fact, the only reason we know he has a disability is 1McGautha because of the title. Wordsworth appears to be telling a tale about a mother's mistake that almost gets her son lost forever, but in reality he is telling a tale about a mother who didn’t see her son as having a “disability.” Instead she saw him as special, normal and capable to do anything a “regular” person could do. Including riding a horse into town to relay a message. Wordsworth is trying to make society question the role we play in raising a child with disabilities. The first instance where I see Betty’s love for her son is in stanzas 11 and 12. In stanza 11, the narrator says, “The Boy, who is her best delight…” “And Betty’s most especial charge,/ Was, “Johnny! Johnny! mind that you/ Come home again, nor stop at all,--/ Come home again, whate’er befall,/My Johnny, do, I pray you do.” This stanza gives readers proof that the mother does love her son because of her worry for his travels. I thought about my aunt taking my cousin off to school. He too, is considered disabled and when she brought him to Mizzou in his wheel chair, she was very worried about his journey. In this stanza, Betty proves that her son Johnny is one of her cares in life by worrying about him.Next, Betty becomes proud of her son for embarking on such a journey. This is evident intwo stanzas. In the 18th stanza, the narrator describes the feeling Betty has seeing her son ride off on the pony. “And while the Mother, at the door,/ Stands fixed, her face with joy o’erflows,/ Proud of herself, and proud of him,/She sees him in his travelling trim,/How quietly her Johnny goes.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines proud as, “having a high or exalted opinion of one's own worth or importance,” and in this case, Johnny’s joy was the most important thing to her. Which leads me to my last point. I noticed in the story, that every time the narrator speaks about Johnny, he doesn’t use his name. Instead he refers to Johnny as, “The Boy, “Her Idiot Boy” or simply, “Boy.” However, when talking about the mother’s feelings about her son or when the mother is speaking, he is 2McGautha always referred to as “Johnny.” This is important because it further supports my argument that Wordsworth is trying to question society’s role in the aid of children with disabilities. As a society, we sometimes ignore those who are “sick” and gravitate toward “healthy” people. People who suffer from mental retardation are placed to the side with limitations and as a whole we continue to tell them all of the things they cannot do instead of focusing on their strengths. Here, we see a mother who sees her child just as she sees everyone else in the world and she doesn’t let her child suffer from the limitations the world has placed on him. After reading it this way, the poem becomes a commentary on society. It asks the question of “why is it so wrong for a boy to fulfill his dream, even if he is risking his life? So many people who are ‘healthy’ takes their life for granted and risks theirs daily.” It also asks us, “why was his ‘idiocy’ the first thing we noticed?” Wordsworth purposefully never mentions whatthe disability is that the boy is suffering from, we only “know” that he is disabled because of the word “idiot” in the title and because the narrator refers to him as such. In “The Idiot Boy,” Wordsworth allows a mother to help her child make his dreams come true, by allowing him to bea “normal kid” and who knows, maybe we are the idiots.
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